NAPLES, Fla. & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, today announced it has partnered with Turkish Bank UK to power its Faster Payments offering. The UK-based bank will use ACI’s aggregator service to connect to the UK Faster Payments Scheme – allowing it to process all transfers to and from UK bank accounts instantly. The bank will use the service via ACI’s cloud-based delivery model run from its new European data centre, which opened in Limerick last month.

Turkish Bank (UK) Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Turkish Bank Limited, founded in 1901, and has been serving the Turkish and Cypriot community in the UK for over 40 years.

David Stewart, Managing Director, Turkish Bank UK, commented:

“We are excited about our partnership with ACI. Getting direct access to the UK Faster Payments Scheme, working with ACI as the technical aggregator rather than going through a correspondent bank, will enable us to provide real-time payments services to our customers 24/7.

“ACI provided us with the trust and scalability that we were looking for in a vendor, and the fact that the service will be run from a state-of-the-art data centre will provide peace of mind as we leverage this critical access to the UK Faster Payments Scheme on behalf of our customers.”

Carolyn Homberger, Group President, ACI Worldwide, commented:

“Across Europe, we have seen considerable demand for our dedicated private cloud offerings. It is one of the reasons why we opened a new data centre in Limerick last month.

“The data centre delivers the utmost in reliability, security and data privacy for all of our customers across the region. We are excited to work with innovative institutions like Turkish Bank, delivering Universal Payments capabilities to help them effectively compete in today’s fast changing market.”

Earlier this year, ACI was awarded a ‘trust mark’ accreditation by FSPL, the official recognition as one of the ‘technical aggregators’ that helps payment and financial institutions gain access to real-time Faster Payments in a single or multi-tenant environment through the New Access Model.* The model was introduced by the UK regulator in order to increase competition in the financial services sector and open up the market to new entrants.

Based on the New Access Model, ACI offers PSPs, challenger banks and payments processors a ‘pay as you go’ cloud-based solution that manages all IT and connectivity requirements to process payments via the UK Faster Payments scheme. For non-bank PSPs, sponsor banks would offer clearing, settlement and liquidity services.

Available via a private cloud-based delivery model or on-premise, ACI’s UP Immediate Payments solution is highly flexible and adaptable, enabling access to all IP schemes globally. It has been used by existing scheme members to access Faster Payments since launching in 2008.

ACI currently supports over 60 percent of the direct participants in the UK Faster Payments scheme.

ACI provides world-class electronic payments, banking, and fraud protection solutions and services to more than 4,600 financial institutions, retailers, and billers around the world through a private cloud, processing more than 35 million transactions per day.

Note to editors:

*The New Access Model, first published by the Faster Payments Scheme in December 2014, sets out proposals to enable technology vendors to offer technical access to Payment Service Providers (PSPs) by adding to their existing accounting platform technology, or providing a managed solution to either a single or multiple PSPs.

The Technical Accreditation process is designed to help PSPs make an informed choice of which technical vendor to select to obtain access to Faster Payments, as any accredited vendor has been able to demonstrate their technical capability.

A more detailed description of the New Access Model is available in the Faster Payments: A Vision for a New Access Model, whitepaper: http://www.fasterpayments.org.uk/sites/default/files/FPS_Payment%20Access%20Whitepaper.pdf

About ACI Worldwide

ACI Worldwide, the Universal Payments (UP) company, powers electronic payments for more than 5,100 organizations around the world. More than 1,000 of the largest financial institutions and intermediaries as well as thousands of global merchants rely on ACI to execute $14 trillion each day in payments and securities. In addition, myriad organizations utilize our electronic bill presentment and payment services. Through our comprehensive suite of software and SaaS-based solutions, we deliver real-time, immediate payments capabilities and enable the industry’s most complete omni-channel payments experience. To learn more about ACI, please visit www.aciworldwide.com. You can also find us on Twitter @ACI_Worldwide.

About Faster Payments

Faster Payments is the only UK interbank payment system available day and night, 365 days per year, supporting the demands of personal and business customers to make payments from mobile, Internet and telephone banking channels. In 2015, Faster Payments processed 1.24 billion payment transactions with a value of £1,104 billion.

Faster Payments Scheme Limited (FPSL) is an independent limited by guarantee company established in 2011. The Scheme exists to develop, operate and enhance payment services based upon a shared 24/7 real-time infrastructure. FPSL is driven by the long-term needs and aspirations of customers, businesses, government, the third sector and all types of Payment Service Providers (PSPs) including challengers and incumbents. The Scheme operates on a fair and equitable cost recovery basis. It does not seek to make a financial return for its guarantors. www.fasterpayments.org.uk

About Turkish Bank (UK)

Turkish Bank has been in the UK for over 40 years and is part of a larger group based in Turkey and Northern Cyprus which has been serving customers for over 100 years. Turkish Bank seeks to serve the Turkish speaking community in the UK and Group customers with their banking needs in the UK, in line with the Group’s culture and ethical values, supported by a strong and conservative capital and liquidity position. The opportunity to join the faster Payments system directly will strengthen the Bank’s ability to continue to improve the services to the Bank’s customers, and is one of a number of enhancements that the Bank is putting in place over the next year and beyond.

© Copyright ACI Worldwide, Inc. 2016.

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